


The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met

by luna65



Category: Greta Van Fleet (Band)
Genre: Brotp, Gen, Sammy & Danny: friendship goals
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-05
Updated: 2019-04-05
Packaged: 2020-01-05 00:09:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18354566
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luna65/pseuds/luna65
Summary: When you've got a video of your best friend being the biggest dork in the known universe...you post it, right?  Youhaveto!





	The Most Unforgettable Character I Ever Met

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by and in honor of Danny's Instagram post for Sam's bday, which was total Friendship Goals. So this is just a rumination on the nature of their friendship and dynamic. The title is taken from a long-running feature in _Reader's Digest_ , I thought it would be fitting to describe Sam.

In a family known for its’ individualists, Danny tended to think that Sam worked that much harder to be his own person. Either that, or he was just _weird_.

But, weird in the good way. A total cut-up, and entirely friendly. They would go anywhere and Sam would always be the first to talk to people, to start random conversations and make humorous observations. All in that slighty raspy voice that Danny was convinced Sam had somehow been born with. Danny had learned something from Sam about how to be open with people - you might regret it sometimes, but usually people responded immediately to Sam’s sense of humor. To make genuine connections with people, there was a power to such an endeavor.

Of course, it got them in trouble just as much as it paved the way for community relations. Sam was always the first to think of crazy pranks, always the first to get an entire classroom laughing at a smartass remark. He remembered their 9th grade Social Studies teacher who was a very patient man and tried his best to get Sam to understand why he should use his comedic powers for good.

“Sammy, I know you get bored because you’re so smart. But we have to figure out something you can do that won’t end up getting you a month of detention.”

“You’re smart, huh?” Danny had teased him on the way to their next class. “Dude, you’ve got him so snowed!”

“Totally,” Sam replied with a smirk. “Didja tell Lori you’re coming over after school?”

“Oh crap! I’m supposed to go to Meijers with her since Dad is out of town. Her personal grocery lackey.”

“Here’s your chance to stock up on the good stuff!”

“Not bloody likely,” Danny replied in his impression of Vivian from _The Young Ones_. They entered the classroom and took their seats - this far into the semester all of their teachers knew better than to let them sit in close proximity, so they were two rows apart. Mrs. Szymanski entered as Final Bell was sounding, looking wearily down the aisles.

“Okay people, textbooks out, we’re going over Chapter Six today - discussion questions worksheets, pass them up please. And no commentary today, Mr. Kiszka, I beg you.”

Snickers filled the air as everyone dutifully passed their worksheets to the front of the class.

“I thought it was really interesting!” Sam protested.

“Did you now? Well good, we’ll start the discussion with you then.”

Sam rolled his eyes and huffed and Danny whispered, perhaps a little too loudly, “It’s okay - you’re the smart one!”

“And then you’re going after him, Mr. Wagner, so get ready.”

Sam guffawed loudly and Danny shook his head. No matter what it was, Sammy always managed to drag Danny into his shenanigans. 

 

 

Danny figured Sam had become so outgoing because everyone in his family was such a unique personality, he was just doing what he could to be seen and heard, even as none of them were slighted or ignored. Danny used to think he could sort of fade into the background whenever he was invited to stay for dinner or a sleepover, or even along on a weekend outing. But the Kiszkas were the kind of parents who paid attention to everything their kids did because they genuinely wanted to help them discover themselves. So Danny had learned to shed his burgeoning adolescent taciturnity in favor of a more expressive persona when he was among them. And over time, he had become another of their kids.

But his parents had raised him to be well-mannered, he had expectations which weren’t shared with his brothers-by-choice. He got teased relentlessly in regards to his more gentle nature. Danny and Sam understood each other _because_ of their differences, how they complemented each other’s personalities. They were all obsessed with music in a way which none of their peers seemed to be, thus as friends and as a band they were a species of four who could always converse and commune in a particular way.

When everything changed, as Danny somehow knew it would even as it happened so fast it retained that quality of the surreal and the unbelievable, he hung back as he tended to do to observe the effect. Only to find it hadn’t changed them at all. Sam would always be the first to pull him back down to earth with a quip or a tease or by doing something entirely unconscious which illustrated their cellular connection. 

They did a lot of record shopping that first touring cycle - when they could manage it - and Sam would quickly flip through albums and hand him as many as he was setting aside for himself. Danny would hold up selections he knew Sam might be interested in. It was just something they did for each other. If Danny got up before anyone else - which he tended to do, a holdover from his training days - then he made sure to bring Sam coffee, even if it was terrible coffee.

They made their own fun during interviews by being silly and there was something comforting about being on the other side of the world, patiently enduring another standard interrogation, and Sam would just turn it on and then Danny could let himself fall back into their chemistry, soul-deep. It was Home.

The experience could have been weird, it could have been exhausting, but it was nothing but fun.

 

Sam had an inherent belief in the power of them, it wasn’t merely a front. But because he used humor to defuse it, the sentiment didn’t end up pissing people off. Sam was the kid all the grandmas liked, but Sam was also the kid who might say: “You ever wonder what it would be like to play on the back of a flatbed truck driving through town _naked_?”

And Danny would just have to laugh, half shocked and half amused.

“I mean, how well can you _play_ when you’re naked, like, just from a genitalia management perspective. And then there’s wind to consider.”

He had everyone rolling by that point. Such was the power of Sammy.

Danny had a file on his laptop, full of downloaded videos from his phone, which was titled Sam Being Sam. He had gotten skilled at filming Sam on the sly, though sometimes he still might make a noise because Sam Being Sam was always ridiculously entertaining. And Danny would have thought that Sam would have eventually caught on to Danny’s voyeuristic strategy...then again, he always suspected that Sam had undertaken what would likely be a lifelong project to entertain him. Because he cared that much about making Danny laugh.

 

Mike had sent him a photo from that first tour, of the two of them sitting outside a club because the owner was being a pain about allowing them to be inside when they weren’t actually playing the set. And it reminded Danny of so many nights like that over the years; so they would do what they always did: talk about everything in the world, affectionately argue and instinctively agree, and know that no one would ever quite understand them as well as they understood each other. Aligned in the most complete and true of ways.

Danny looked at the photo on his phone and smiled. “That’s so us,” he murmured to himself. Having a conversation about something they’d already talked about thousands of times, no doubt. But every single time - the sympathetic vibration, the psychic alignment - it resonated as deeply as their music did with the thousands out there who responded to it with raucous joy.

It was great to be in a band which had achieved more than he could ever hoped for or dreamed of. But the real prize was to be in a band with your best friend, and know that wherever you went, whatever you did...it was going to be something you discovered _together_.

 _And who else could put up with this dork_ , he thought as he watched another video. _Oh this is the one! This is classic Sam Being Sam._

Danny wouldn’t have wanted his best friend to be anyone other than who he was: smart, funny, crazy talented, argumentative, sarcastic and wicked, sometimes a pain in the ass, but always there by his side.

“You kooky kid,” he whispered, snickering at the memory playing before his eyes. The only brother he had ever wanted or needed.


End file.
